Rebecca Macfie's first-hand accounts of the Christchurch earthquakes in the New Zealand Listener provided an often searing account of the disaster. They were powerful and immediate because Macfie herself lived there, personally affected by the devastation.

As Macfie explains in 'Hope and despair', the first chapter of this BWB Text, her own house was badly damaged and she and her family were forced to move out. But other families faced injury and even death. Written over a period of two years, Macfie's Report from Christchurch traces the city's struggle to recover from the disaster and plan for the future.